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Will Apple conquer the enterprise? Woz: It can happen

September 28, 2010, 12:25pm PDT | Length: 00:02:45
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak discusses whether Apple's technologies can become standard in the enterprise overtaking the PC. "It can happen, but it's still going to be gradual," Wozniak says. "Everybody sees the writing on the wall."
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Apple support is woeful at the enterprise level.
Reality Bites 1st Dec 2010
@fjpoblam .. I have dealt with apple support and engineering many times and they never have fixed a single thing. Our engineering team has to write work arounds for their bugs.
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Oh well, it isn't 1999. Somebody has to pay the bill.
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I would say: No
Roque Mocan 28th Sep 2010
Apple doesn't need the enterprise - it would be even counterproductive, as they would have to go out of their comfort zone. Too many variables: stronger security, make many enterprise apps work, Active Directory, etc. Just keep extending on the consumer space.
@Roque Mocan The problem is, or maybe the opportunity is, you have a home PC to work with your work stuff. If they get iOS more into the Enterprise, people will buy iPads or whatever to get to their Enterprise apps. I think "take over" may be a little strong, but "expand" is certainly happening.
It looks like a lot of comments have disappeared.
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No Enterprise Mindset
trickytom3 29th Sep 2010
The problem with Apple is that it simply doesn't have an "enterprise mindset".

In order to appeal to enterprise customers, you have to be flexible, and you have to be willing to negotiate on price; Apple doesn't do these things very well.

Apple likes to tell you what hardware you can run in its machines, and that usually doesn't sit very well with CIO's; we like flexibility, and we like to be able to modify a core-machine with cards, memory and drives of our own choosing.

Another issue price. Lots of people claim that the TCO on an Apple enterprise is lower than a PC-shop; I personally don't believe it...I've run the numbers myself on more than one occaision and couldn't make them work. There is just too much quality PC and Wintel server hardware out there at incredibly low prices.

Apple does "consumer" very well, and that's where it should stay.
@trickytom3 You have that right. And to appeal to enterprise customers, you have to be flexible enough to *respond* to customers. Apple hasn't shown this in a lot of cases either (pun intended). "You're just not holding it right."
in customer satisfaction the past three years. Because they are totally unresponsive to their customers. Just more proof that a brain is not required to use a keyboard.
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@fjpoblam .. I have dealt with apple support and engineering many times and they never have fixed a single thing. Our engineering team has to write work arounds for their bugs.
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RE: Will Apple conquer the enterprise? Woz: It can happen
DeusXMachina Updated - 4th Oct 2010
@trickytom3

"we like flexibility, and we like to be able to modify a core-machine with cards, memory and drives of our own choosing."

You keep pushing this meme, even though it has been proved incorrect numerous times.

In what way can I not "modify" my machine by adding "cards, memory and drives."

I guess the 6 drives I had running in my FW800 machine were a figment of my imagination, as was the SCSI RAID card. I guess the 2GB over stock (total 4GB) in my macbook are an illusion.
@DeusXMachina: Yeah, me too. I really do not need to muck around much in the guts of my Macs. That's what Mac Stores are for. I HAVE become quite expert in the use of Mac software for medicine, and that's where my needs lie (local folks consult me for just that reason, including some folks at the local Apple store).

IT folks purchase IT hardware because that's where their interests lie. USERS purchase IT machines to run their software. That's where the disconnect lies. I've run nothing but Macs for twenty five years and I have YET to need IT folks for anything but an occasional basic tune up. My Mac-based systems at home and work are completely vertically integrated and 'they just work'. No complaints from this fan-boy.
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@DeusXMachina
Looks like you forgot a little problem called 'drivers'.
You may be happy with the modifications you were able to make on your Apple computer, but the reason PC's are on top and Apple is waaaaay down there is simple.

PC's have ALWAYS been an open platform. Apple is not open and never has been. IBM PC's and clones remained a flexible and relatively cheap platform making them useful for business. There is more to it than banging a PCI card into a machine or running QuarkExpress. You need wide software support and drivers for your hardware. PC's have always embraced a multitude of interfaces - have always been expandable, Apple's much less so.

Yes, even the OS needs to be flexible and here is another area where PC operating systems gave business what they needed. Let's not forget MS provided the best Office suite, the best development tools etc. etc.

I could go on.....

PC's stayed OPEN for business.
@DeusXMachina Ok, so if I want a fibrechannel card, connected to an EMC SAN and AMD processors Apple's going to do that for me? If I want to run an Oracle cluster is Apple going to do that for me?

If I want a blade center with 10 blades 2 CPUs each will they do that?

The answer to all of these questions is no. Apple does not build enterprise grade machines.
@DeusXMachina Only limited hardware support. God forbid you should want to use an array controller not blessed by Steve Jobs himself. God forbid you should want to use a SAN solution that isn't XSAN.
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RE: Will Apple conquer the enterprise? Woz: It can happen
DeusXMachina Updated - 23rd Oct 2010
@traxxion
"Looks like you forgot a little problem called 'drivers'.'

If it looks like that to you, you are not paying attention. First, driver issues exist for PCs too, especially with the move from XP to Vista, and from 32-bit to 64-bit. Your point is just not germane.

"You may be happy with the modifications you were able to make on your Apple computer, but the reason PC's are on top and Apple is waaaaay down there is simple."

The reason Windows machines are on top has NOTHING to do with them being an open platform. Either you were not around during the 70s and 80s, or you were fast asleep.

"PC's have ALWAYS been an open platform. Apple is not open and never has been."

First of all, there is no apostrophe in the term "PCs."
Second, IBM PCs have NOT always been open. You have no idea what you are talking about, and are just pulling stuff out of your ass. In fact, the first PC bus architecture was NOT open, and neither were many other iterations. More importantly, in what way is the PCI-X bus in macs not "open?"
Again, you have no idea what you are talking about.

"IBM PC's and clones remained a flexible and relatively cheap platform making them useful for business."

Again with the apostrophes. Again, the flexibility had little to do with their success.

"You need wide software support and drivers for your hardware."
This also had nothing to do with Windows success.

"PC's have always embraced a multitude of interfaces - have always been expandable, Apple's much less so."

Bull. Please cite examples on both sides.

"Yes, even the OS needs to be flexible and here is another area where PC operating systems gave business what they needed. Let's not forget MS provided the best Office suite, the best development tools etc. etc."

First, the Office suite is available for macOS, so that argument is irrelevant. Second, that MS' dev tools are the best is CERTAINLY debatable. In fact, I know few people who code on both who do not GREATLY prefer XCode.

"I could go on....."

Since you are just making stuff up, and not backing ANY of it up with facts, that is hardly surprising.
And elipses have three dots, not just any old random number.
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RE: Will Apple conquer the enterprise? Woz: It can happen
DeusXMachina Updated - 19th Oct 2010
@snoop0x7b
Why do you post on matters you are completely ignorant about?!? At the very least, do 30 seconds of research before you post your drivel.

"Okay, so if I want a fibrechannel card, connected to an EMC SAN and AMD processors Apple's going to do that for me? If I want to run an Oracle cluster is Apple going to do that for me?"

1) Fibrechannel is and has been, available for OSX machines for quite some time. Same with SAN storage.
Are you bringing these things up because you truly think they are not available, or are you just talking out of your ass?

As for AMD, I seriously doubt you can list any companies that require AMD chips in order to make a purchase. That is just blatant cherry picking. Why not complain that Apple does not supply a BIOS option?

"If I want a blade center with 10 blades 2 CPUs each will they do that?"

Um, yeah, XServe.

Seriously, guy, you are a COMPLETE ignoramus. Sorry, but you just simply don't know what you are talking about, and the hubris involved in your feeling competent to post on this topic is astounding.

"The answer to all of these questions is no. Apple does not build enterprise grade machines."

No, the answer is not no. QED

Only limited hardware support. God forbid you should want to use an array controller not blessed by Steve Jobs himself. God forbid you should want to use a SAN solution that isn't XSAN.

Last I checked, there was no devine injuntion against EMC, or ATTO, or any of a number of companies in the OSX SAN market.

Again, you have NO idea what you are talking about.
Too many barriers for Apple. Also Apple does not get the enterprise market. If sucessfull will take many, many years. Microsoft is much ahead in this space since it provides management solutions and an integrated stack for enterprises for many years.
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conquer
banned from zdnet 30th Sep 2010
apple will not conquer the enterprise market, the obstacles mainly with the people in the IT departments are too high. most of them are deeply entrenched in the microsoft/linux mindset to support apple. but apple's foothold will expand no matter how hard dinosaur IT people like the commentors here try to prevent it.

the iphone and the ipad are the trojan horses. the workforce simply demands that they want to use the iphone and the ipad and contrary to a few years ago, where IT departments could specify which technology the workforce has to use the power balance is shifting. more and more IT departments have to give up their resistance and make apple hardware work within their system, or otherwise they're regarded as not making their job eventually even risking losing it.
@banned from zdnet
No... the obstacle is that Apple's are no use to business. Why we keep going over and over this is beyond me. Windows is the most useful platform, Linux is the next most useful and below that there is Apple.

Same goes for phones. Just because a bunch of people who don't have a clue what they are talking about start hollering for the adoption of their beloved iPhone, does not mean it should happen.

I have used the iPhone and the iPad and I ran into the limitations pretty quickly. Useless....
@Traxxion
Your response reads as very 'nerdish' to me happy
@banned from zdnet
Is that why iPhone is losing market share to Android and even more when MiPhones come out?
@banned from zdnet Sure the iPhone may gain some penetration. Doubtful their servers will because there are so few options. You can't really virtualize OSX on commodity hardware, and the whole point of virtualization in the modern datacenter is cheap commodity hardware forming a cluster. XServes cost more than Dell servers, and if you're going to put something like VMWare ESX on it anyhow (which is common in the enterprise environment) what's the point of having OSX?

A lot of enterprise software is written for either windows server, linux, or Solaris. OSX is none of the above...
The enterprise market requires the vendor be more responsive to IT within the enterprise than to the end user within the enterprise. Apple is a consumer business. So it's a conflict of corporate cultures. This is why Microsoft ate Apple's lunch in the 1980's when even then it was obvious Mac was more user friendly than Windows. MS partnered with corporate IT, Apple just wanted to sell personal computers that empowered the user. Have those conditions changed?
@FredC1212 Yeah, now Apple wants to sell iDevices which empower themselves. It's still consumer electronics oriented and definitely not enterprise oriented. The key to success in enterprise is enterprise class support. Look at someone like Oracle, EMC, Red Hat, or the Microsoft Partner Network... That just isn't there for Apple. You can't call them up for their hardware and expect a representative on site until the thing is fixed for a yearly fee.
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Not sure they want to play in the realm, they are not structured for it nor do they know how to play there well based on observations here. From what I have seen is the roles would be reversed and they would have to bend over back wards for companies, and companies would not bend to them. We offer Mac's here as an option for Dept.s At first there seemed like a surge, but that died down after the "novelty" wore off and the TCO was applied to the Dept. doing the ordering (we are a charge back setup for certain items). iPhones and to a smaller extent the iPads have been played a bigger role. The Macs have some TCO and a lot of software issues.
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There is a funny irony in all of this
Crash2100 Updated - 30th Sep 2010
The funny irony in all of this is, if Apple began doing major enterprise work and got many companies using their products with Mac OS, they would loose their great claim that the Macs don't get viruses, spyware, and everything else malicious. Because the main reason Microsoft Windows fights so much of this today, is simply because it's currently the most popular OS product in the industry.
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bs
banned from zdnet 1st Oct 2010
@Crash2100
then how do you explain that mac os had thousands of viruses before it went unix in 2001. mac os x since then has about 10 times the user base mac os had in 2000 and yet there is not a single mac os x virus. not a single one. please explain that to me.
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oh really
Crash2100 Updated - 1st Oct 2010
@banned from zdnet
Why do so many people claim that there isn't a single mac os x virus, when that isn't even true? There may not be as many as in the Windows world, but they're still out there. Mac OS X has worms, viruses, trojans, and spyware. Here's one for you listed right here. It's not immune, it's simply less popular.

OSX/Leap-A
http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/osxleapa.html
@crash2100

LeapA is not a virus, so what is your point, exactly?

There are ZERO OSX viruses. Period.
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@DeusXMachina
I find it so interesting how Mac users define malicious programs so specifically when they're referring to things on the Mac's side. Then when it comes to the windows side, they just call everything malicious a "virus". All the Mac community really deserves is credit for being nothing more than less popular and ignorant. Although they're not alone here, the Linux community is the same way.
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@banned from zdnet , @Crash2100
The point is there is essentially zero malicious malware/virus/etc in the wild. The threat is almost non-existent.
@banned from zdnet

Well, let's be careful there. The official tally of viruses for OS 9 and below was 65.

Then I suppose there were a couple of Trojans to consider.

And there were an unknown number of Word Macro viruses, but those couldn't affect the Mac itself.
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@Crash2100 I have heard that for a very long time, but I have read a great number of articles by respected tech pundits that both dispute and even completely disqualify that logic.
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WOZ IS THE MAN
yobtaf 1st Oct 2010
That guy is so cool.
Apple has not made a serious run at the large-scale enterprise market and has STILL become the most lucrative player in the IT world. Steve Jobs may be a little crazy, but he is definitely not stupid and if anything, Woz is even smarter.

Among small players in the enterprise market (like myself, a physician), I strongly prefer Apple products because they do everything I ask them to do (which is quite alot), at a modest cost, with excellent customer service, and virtually complete reliability. Just as the American economy depends on growth in the small business market, Apple's enterprise growth probably depends on the small business market and the consumer products market. And they're doing a pretty good job at it.
@markomd Small Business users are very much NOT Enterprise users. That's a very different market. The very definition of "Enterprise" is "Very Large Organization". Sure, one can argue about whether this means 1,000 users minimum or 10,000, but it's not Small Business.

As a Physician, you may work in a hospital that's large enough to really quality as an "Enterprise", though many are not that large. Basically, if you're talking to the PC provider yourself, and you're not a CIO or other full time IT guy, you're not in an Enterprise-class business.
@markomd They'll never capture large players... If you call yourself a small player you aren't enterprise. What we mean by enterprise IT would people who need things like an EMC SAN, Sun Servers.. I.E. if you don't have more than 2 full 48U racks you aren't enterprise.
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For one simple reason: choice. Large organizations do like to form tight relationships with their equipment providers. Along with this comes service from said providers, discount, enterprise-wide licensing, enterprise-wide software development solutions, and "do what I say" responsiveness. This is why IBM became so powerful, this is exactly what they provided.

With that as a given, they don't burn bridges. Single vendor lock-in, for any product, may be a reality, but it's also a choice of last resort. An Enterprise needs the ability to jump to Dell or HP hardware, as a drop-in replacement, if IBM isn't delivering what they need. They will never chose the MacOS platform across the Enterprise for this single reason: it's completely unnecessary single-vendor lock-in.

And in reality, large companies rarely are single-vendor outlets. They may unit behind a single OS (and if so, it's Windows, today), but they use multiple vendors, simply because they don't get the needed diversity of equipment from a single vendor. They may get their servers from one company, desktops elsewhere, laptops somewhere else still, factory floor rugged tablets or laptops somewhere else. Apple can't match the hardware diversity of one single PC company today. They won't ever deal with this kind of diversity.

As for iOS, it's immediately disqualified. Enterprises site-license software directly from a vendor, and develop what they need internally. iOS inserts an overly controlling and completely unnecessary middleman into this system. No one wants that.
Apple will need to make Enterprise integration, management and support a priority. In addition, they will need to provide to Enterprises information on upcoming changes.

Also Apple will need to be responsive to issues and needs from Enterprise customers. Rapid fixes to issues are a must.

Finally, Enterprises are much slower on adopting change and much less tolerant to forced change.
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Never
Altotus 12th Oct 2010
Apple cant do it its just potential.
Apple is a joke. Ok, they showed IBM where its at eons ago when IBM didn't think people would want a PC in their home. These are different times. My first recommendation to Jobs is to STOP LIEING TO THE PUBLIC, stop misrepresenting your OS by comparing MAC OS X to PC. For starters, it should be MAC OS X vs Windows. I am running Ubuntu 10.04, I have customers running MAC OS X and Windows. I used to run Windows, but it is riddled with security holes, virii, spyware and hackers. OSX is just not a fun OS to work with, and Windows is junk. I realize that the diehards are going to dis me from here to ying-yang, but fact is fact, and experience is experience. Mac OSX is a childs OS and windows is for the fearless and uninformed. I would not use either even if they were free, and guess what? They are not free...but Ubuntu is...and it does circles around both.
@JoltSystems no need to dis you .. your post speaks for itself.

That joke has been awfully good for those who have owned the stock for several years.

You may be a smart a-- but it's better to be solvent.
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RE: Will Apple conquer the enterprise? Woz: It can happen
DeusXMachina Updated - 19th Oct 2010
@JoltSystems

First, there is no such word as *virii. The plural of virus is viruses. Period. Even if the word virus HAD a Latin plural (it does not) it would not be *virii. Where on earth are you getting that extra "i" from, huh?
Second, the fact that OSX is FULLY POSIX compliant, and a certified UNIX must really eat at you. Is Ubuntu? Hello? Unix is a child's OS? Really?
The negative comments you received are, as usual from individuals who use their machines for something other than getting work done; and, by work, I mean any of the areas of activity or endeavor.

Some day it may occur to these people to simply acquire the equipment that accomplishes the task in a manner they prefer.

Hopefully they will stay with Windows .. they deserve it.
It's amusing to me how these comment threads always turn into mass bickering about Apple vs. Microsoft. I think the hardware (xserve 1U 8 Core) is sufficient for Enterprise class servers, and these will serve both OS X and Windows clients. However, the real roadblock for Apple, is the software. Unless you are using cloud-based business software, there aren't many choices for multi-user ERP, Accounting, or Manufacturing software solutions on the OS X platform. Perhaps if corporations are using NetSuite, they can use Apple hardware for their servers. Clearly, IT guys are not going to like switching to totally foreign hardware (HP/IBM/DELL to Apple), because they would need retraining, and it may just eliminate their jobs. Let's face it, IT guys and gals like to tinker, tweak, command line, registry poke, firewall prod and anti-virus massage. If you eliminate many of these things by moving away from Windows Server, and switching to more reliable hardware - you just lost your job.
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As long as Steve Jobs has "the one mind that controls the product" Apple isn't going anywhere in the enterprise and enterprise is the industry. The short answer is no! The long answer is Apple is rapidly becoming an "other" market vendor.
For a moment I thought it was going to be a retro piece...from 1985 or so... In some markets, sure...Apple conquered for a short time (desktop publishing - which they more or less created, and some school setups)...and then they seemed to lose ground there as pc's gained.

The fanboys have been listening too long to the Mac Evangelists...and the Evangelists have been taking the adoration of the fanboys as public praise... Some people would love to have a Mac Office...but only some.
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Apple quits the Enterprise
joelthibeault123@... 1st Dec 2010
Apple will never be successful in the Enterprise because they are smart enough to know they don't want to spend the bucks to make them properly manageable. It only cuts into the Greedy Profits of Apple.
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Ahh, the bitter seer irony
jamsdwy 1st Dec 2010
Opened this on an iPad so can't watch the flash video....
Apple does not license or allow cloning. How can an enterprise be dependent on one company for its IT needs. With Apple's mindset that will never happen.
Personally dealing with several very high profile customers and encountering Apple OS bugs, Apple support were unable to provide a solution, even their engineering support was unable to even promise a fix to the bugs. Apple has proved many times over the years they don't "get enterprise" you can't tell a big customer to pound sand. As soon as the customer can they swap to a properly supported product.

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